Journal Article

Signposts

GUROCK, JEFFREY S.

2017

Overview

[...]while always the scholar, Adler nonetheless found a way to slip in words of praise for Jews and support for the United States’ actions during the Spanish-American War, in an account of an inquisitional trial in Mexico, a document that at first blush had no apologetic motif at all.4 But even as he granted all due respect to Straus and the coterie of dedicated amateurs who carefully defended Jewish status using history, Adler ultimately had a much higher goal in mind. [...]in communicating with other scholars about these varied fields, Adler asserted that it was important for American Jewish specialists to go beyond “political history or institutional history or ecclesiastical history”-the types of studies that until then had occupied their attention-and to delve into “the life of the people and all that relates to it.” [...]several months subsequent to this speech, Adler soberly told his colleague and friend, Professor Richard Gottheil-a frequent contributor to the journal-that while the “Historical Society… has at least established an oasis of earnestness in a desert of frivolity,” unless the group broadened its purview, it would “go the way of all such local and special Societies.” [...]Baron wrote to Marcus that without him the session “would be almost like a wedding without the bridegroom.” In coming to Peekskill, they indicated that the American Jewish story was worthy of their attention.12 From that point on-while the society’s journal on occasion published pieces that were not up to academic standards, like a 1965 article on Billy the Kid and the Jews-the American Jewish Historical Quarterly [AJHQ] increasingly became a noteworthy academic organ.13 Perhaps the best sign that the new core work of the society was maturing and garnering respect took place in 1957 when the distinguished American historian of nativism John Higham agreed to publish “Social Discrimination against Jews in America, 1830-1930” in AJHQ.

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Subject: Adler, Cyrus / Antisemitism / Archives & records / Clergy / Discrimination / Historians / History / Jewish Americans / Jewish literature / Jewish people / Judaic studies / Nativism / Political history / Semiotics / Society / Spanish-American War / Specialists / Weddings / Writing